Evil Never Dies

“I’m having a difficult time falling asleep.”

Heels clacked against Formica tiles. Kitally heard the curtains over the window being shut tight.

“Did you take your pills?”

“Why do you ask me that every time you come in here? Of course I did.”

“No reason for you to get all worked up. Just doing my job.”

“I don’t like being treated like a child,” Betty said. “My insurance company pays a large sum of money for me to be here. I deserve to be treated with respect.”

“Of course you do. But we have rules around here. You know that. If we let every patient run around here willy-nilly, can you imagine the chaos? Nobody in this place would ever get any sleep at all. And would that be fair to your friend Cecil? Or what about poor Mrs. Potter?”

“What do you mean ‘poor’ Mrs. Potter? Did something happen to Madge?”

“Never mind.” Drawers were opened and then shut.

“What are you doing?”

“Just taking a look around.”

“Why? Stay out of my personal belongings. I’m going to report you. Do you hear me?”

The orderly marched across the room. The tension between the two women sucked the oxygen right out of the room. Kitally could see the tips of well-worn shoes beneath the bed. Then she felt the mattress press down on her back. What the hell is going on?

“Open your mouth.”

“No.”

“Do it or I’ll be forced to call Patrick to do the honors.”

“OK. OK.”

It was quiet for a moment and then the staffer said, “Where are you hiding the pills, Betty?”

“I’ve taken every bit of medication you’ve ever given me. You’ve just given me a double dose. Here’s hoping you haven’t done any damage.”

The orderly walked to the window, yanked back the curtains, and opened the window.

If the orderly leaned too far down, she might see Kitally under the bed. And then what? What would she do? Kitally really didn’t want to think about it. The woman’s voice was deep and raspy, as if she smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. She sounded intimidating. No wonder Betty looked scared.

Once the orderly finished, she closed everything and went back to the door. Before she left she said, “I’ve ordered a clean sweep of your room to be done first thing in the morning. I don’t know what you’re doing with your pills, Betty, but I know you’re not taking them. If you were, you would be sleeping like everyone else in this place.”

“I have a very high tolerance for medication,” Betty argued. “You should know that by now.”

“We’ll see about that.” The light clicked off and the door opened and closed.

Kitally didn’t dare move. Not for another five minutes at least.

“Are you awake?” she asked as she finally crawled out of her hiding place.

“I am. Perhaps tonight isn’t the best night to do this, after all.”

Betty’s hunched shoulders and dejected expression gave Kitally chills. The old woman really did need her help. “This is bullshit, Betty,” Kitally said.

Betty looked up at her then.

“Excuse the language, but something doesn’t smell right around here. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going to get to the bottom of it—do you hear me?”

Betty nodded.

This was Kitally’s chance to make a difference, and there was no way she was going to let Betty or Cecil or any of these people down. “I’ll be back. We’re going to find something to prove these people are up to no good. I’m more sure of that than ever.”

“I believe you,” Betty said with a smile. “I really do.”

Lizzy stared out the window. It was dark outside. No moon or stars as far as she could see. But she’d lived here long enough to know where the mossy rock sat beneath a crowd of gangly-limbed oaks. She didn’t need to see either to know they were there. Just as she knew Jared was always near. She wasn’t a sixth sense kind of person, didn’t believe in ghosts or reincarnation, but Jared was here with her. She could feel his presence as if he were standing next to her. She thought of him with her first waking breath and again with every breath that followed until she finally fought her way to sleep at night. She had no idea how many days had passed since she’d last kissed him or held him in her arms. Since his death, each day came and went as if nothing had changed. The world kept turning. Trees still danced in the wind. The birds squawked and chirped. Everything was exactly as it always had been.

And yet nothing would ever be the same again. And that particular fact fueled her rage.

Anger twisted and turned within her, its long crooked fingers wrapping around every muscle and tendon, squeezing, suffocating. The anger she felt started at her toes and worked its way up, heating the blood in her veins, making it hard to breathe. The moon, stars, and trees might all be the same, but her anger and resentment continued to grow like a cancerous cyst inside her.

The house was quiet. Salma was gone, and Hayley and Kitally were out doing who knew what.

Lizzy unfolded the piece of paper she’d found earlier. She had called the number half a dozen times today, but she picked up her cell and decided to try again.

“Hello?”

The voice startled her, so she spoke all in a rush. “Hi, this is Lizzy Gardner. I’m a friend of Jared Shayne’s. I found your number on a note scattered among his personal belongings.” She forced herself to slow down. “The message on the note says, ‘We must talk,’ and I was hoping you could tell me who the note might be from.”

“I don’t recognize that name,” the woman said after hesitating for too long. “And I certainly never passed on any note with my number.”

“Jared Shayne worked for the FBI. He was killed recently.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is there anyone else at this number?” Lizzy asked.

“No. Just me.”

“And who is this I’m talking to?”

“It’s late. I must go. Good night.”

There was a click, and the call was disco

Lizzy was calling bullshit.

She had already looked up everything on the woman. She grabbed her laptop, sat on the bed, and pulled up the information she’d found earlier.

Kathryn Church.

She lived approximately thirty minutes away, in Newcastle. Satellite maps revealed a country road with lots of trees and rolling hills.

Who was she really, though? And why had she wanted to talk to Jared?

Earlier in the day, she’d put the woman’s name into every database available. The basics were easy enough to find: Caucasian, thirty-six years of age, born on May 26, 1978, brunette, brown eyes. She grew up in Sacramento, went to college at UCLA, where she studied psychology, and then moved back to the area and started her own practice.

As Lizzy searched further, she found an article written by Kathryn Church two years ago. The subject matter was repressed childhood memories. Apparently, the woman believed, like other psychologists, that repressed memories could be recovered through therapy. Colleagues argued that prolonged therapy in many of these cases only served to create false memories. But Kathryn remained adamant, convinced that her own repressed memories had come back to her more than a decade after the incident. According to the article, Kathryn had been hesitant to talk about the event she’d suppressed, but once she became an advocate for others in her position, she’d come forward with details of her trauma.

Lizzy sca

Proponents of the existence of repressed memories believed that these traumatic events could be recalled decades after the event, usually triggered by something as simple as a particular song or taste. Skimming over endless citations and references, Lizzy finally found what she was looking for: as an adult, Kathryn Church had been watching her best friend’s child by the pool. A rubber ball rolling into the pool set off alarms and the memories came rushing back. Without warning, Kathryn was ten years old again. Her family had just moved into a neighborhood in Sacramento.